1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus for supplying electric components (i.e., circuit components used for providing electric circuits (e.g., electronic circuits)), and a method of assembling an electric circuit on a print-wired board, i.e., a circuit board, and in particular to the art of improving the supplying of electric components from an electric-component tape holding the electric components.
2. Related Art Statement
There is known an electric-component (“EC”) tape which includes a carrier tape and which holds a plurality of electric components (“ECs”) at a predetermined pitch in a lengthwise direction of the carrier tape, and there is known an EC supplying device which supplies ECs from an EC tape holding the ECs. The EC supplying device includes a feeding device which feeds the EC tape in its lengthwise direction so that the ECs are supplied, one by one, to an object device. If the ECs are supplied one after another and the EC tape is consumed near to the end, an operator connects an initial end portion of another EC tape to a terminal end portion of the current EC tape now supplying the ECs, before the ECs of the current tape are completely consumed. Thus, the ECs of the new tape are successively supplied after the ECs of the preceding tape, without interruption, as if the ECs were supplied limitlessly.